


Even When I Hated You

by ajarofgoodthings



Category: Reign, The Tudors
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-24
Updated: 2016-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-22 11:24:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2506052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajarofgoodthings/pseuds/ajarofgoodthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kenna expects more of a reaction when she returns to court.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this universe exists in some culmination of the tudors and reign that outright ignores history and birthdates and timelines. Xx

Kenna expects more of a reaction when she returns to court.  
  
          At the behest of her own Queen, Kenna had been sent back to England. After the wreck that was her relationship with King Henry, the decision had been made that Kenna should leave her disgrace; start anew. Or, as new as she could, and with her family having rejected her near entirely, Mary had employed her Uncle's love for her to have Kenna sent back to the English court. In hindsight, she supposes that the expectation was probably egotistical of her; given the behaviour of their own King, why would any member of the English court care enough to remember the name of the French King’s Mistress? Not even truly his Mistress; his second choice. It doesn’t matter that she’s one of their own, because again; she’s not _truly_ one of them. She’s Scottish, really - it doesn’t matter how much time she spent at English court; fostered with Mary by her Uncle, and the friendship struck between themselves and the Boleyn Girls on their ascension at court, either. Kenna does not belong; Kenna doesn't belong anywhere, and so she is more than surprised when the only person to remember her name is _the_ Boleyn girl; the new Queen.  
  
          She doesn’t, at first; Anne stares at her like she’s confused, like she can’t quite place her face, when Kenna curtsies. She’s to be one of Anne’s ladies-in-waiting, and it’s not much different than it had been in France; except that now, Kenna is a woman instead of a girl and Anne is carrying the next King of England. The Queen stares at her; beautiful, as always, but worn. She looks tired; but she smiles nonetheless and offers Kenna a heavily bejeweled hand to kiss and it is not until Kenna says; “I am so sorry to have missed your coronation, Your Majesty,” because she is, truly, that realization dawns on the other woman’s face.  
  
          “Kenna!” It’s an exclamation of happiness, and her face lights up, and Kenna hears an echo of her name from Mary while the rest of the ladies dissolve into confusion. “Oh, no! Not at all - you were in France! You must tell me all the news from court, come!” Kenna can’t help but smile herself, and it’s an uncomfortable response for her body. She feels like she hasn’t smiled in years; truly, it’s been weeks, and it’s difficult for her to hold the expression. Anne doesn’t notice; embraces her, her belly and months that feel like years of absence between them, and Kenna can’t help but smile wider with the woman’s arms around her.  
  
          There’s ten years between them, but with Anne's ascension in the King's favour a strong friendship had been struck; when Anne wasn't with the King, or with her father, or her brother, or the seemingly endless list of men looking to control her, she was with Mary, and Kenna and the ladies. They were close; Kenna could hear the King's teasing of a fourth Boleyn echoing in her thoughts, and so Kenna hugs her back, and when Anne pulls away, her hands still tight on Kenna’s shoulders like she’s afraid she might lose her, Kenna keeps smiling.  
  
          “Of course, Your Majesty. I’ll tell you everything,” she grins, and finds her grin almost impossible; she had expected disgrace. She had expected to be outcasted, ignored, looked down upon just as she had been in France. Instead, Anne is looking at her like a long lost friend, and Mary embraces her as well, mumbles of ‘We’ve missed you,’ in Kenna’s ear.  
  
           “Come, sit,” Anne encourages her to the chairs of her privy chamber as Mary moves to disperse the rest of the ladies. Anne gives her a sly smile; knowing, perhaps, and maybe not everyone is oblivious as Kenna originally thought. “You’re excused from duties for the evening, only to provide me with as much idle gossip as you possibly can,” she tells her, and Kenna’s hand in helping her sit is automatic. This is a woman she cannot help but admire; she managed more than Kenna could - she managed more than Kenna could ever have dreamed of, and it only stings a little that their Kings share a name, overshadowed by the sudden influx of love she feels for the Boleyns both. When Anne is seated, Kenna hesitates only momentarily in sitting across from her, smoothing her skirts out. The curtains to the outer chamber are closed, and they are essentially alone, and Kenna feels the tension sift out of her shoulders; she feels like a child again - and it is amazing, to not be under the gaze of a woman and feel scorned.  
  
          “What do you already know, Your Majesty?” She asks, because it’s necessary; she needs to know England’s own gossip before she can provide her own - and she needs to know what’s worth lying about. Anne raises an eyebrow at her, fingers curling near her mouth, one pressed just below her eye. It’s a look of consideration; calculating, assessing, and her gaze sweeps Kenna entirely - but still, she cannot feel judged. Not with Anne, of all people, despite the speech she’d given them all as members of her household; they were to set a standard, but Anne had yet to chastise her for already having dropped below it.  
  
          “I know you were in love,” she says, finally, and Kenna feels herself flush and drops her gaze. She's not ashamed of herself; not anymore. There is only so _much_ shame a heart can hold, and she finds herself completely without it, now. It's only with Anne watching her like she _know_ , because she does know, far better than anyone else, that it blooms in her cheeks.  
  
          “I’ve been in love twice, Your Majesty,” she replies softly, without truly considering her words.  
  
          “Twice?” She looks up when she hears the Queen’s skirts rustling, and finds Anne leaning towards her, the best she can over her stomach, and reaching out. Kenna puts her own hand out, lets cold, heavy rings press into her fingers as Anne clasps it, as her thumb smooths over the back of it.  
  
          “That’s more than most will ever have; you ought to feel lucky, Kenna,” she says her name with a relish; like she almost can’t believe that they’re both here, now, and Kenna understands because she feels the same. She can also feel the understanding in her words, and the name Wyatt flicks through her thoughts too quickly to catch; not that she would want to, anyway. She knows, now, how scandal travels at court.  
  
          “I do feel lucky, Your Majesty,” she insists, squeezes Anne’s hand back. “No more so than when I am in your presence,” she continues, and Anne offers a soft half-smile. “But I am wondering how much one heart can take,” she confesses finally, and Anne squeezes her hand once more before she sits back, hand smoothing out over her belly.  
  
          “Quite a lot, I assure you,” she says like it’s fact; and perhaps it is, "And I have never worried about your heart." Truly, Kenna knows nothing more about the last year of Anne’s life than what she sees before her and gossip, so she doesn’t argue. She has no place to anyway, now; where she once may have argued all of Anne’s statements, if only for the fun of it, if only to see the woman light up with the debate Kenna rarely, but sometimes, had a chance of winning, she no longer has the right to it. Here, she had nearly no rights. “But you are loved, Kenna. You are loved, and you are welcome,” Anne follows up, and Kenna looks from where the woman’s hand is spanned out across her stomach to her face.  
  
           She doesn’t cry. Or at least, she doesn’t cry anymore; she wasn’t sure she had any tears left. She wasn’t sure she had anything left to give at all, but she feels heat prick, sharp and embarrassing in the corners of her eyes, now. “Thank You, Your Majesty,” she says, breathless, hoarse, voice cracking. Anne smiles at her; sad, but hopeful.  
  
          “You are safe here, Kenna,” she offers, and it feels like a declaration. “I promise; you need never be afraid again,” she says, her voice hardly rising above a whisper, but powerful. Kenna nods, wipes at her eyes, and they talk for hours.  
  
          Kenna does cry, eventually, but so does Anne, and they both do it from laughter, reliving memories and experiencing each others’. Kenna gives Anne the entire story, her story, and is shocked when she is not interrupted - when she is not scolded or sent away and when Anne’s apparent affection never wavers. They go on until most of her household begs leave of her, until the sounds from court become nothing but drunken shouting and laughter and the occasional crash, and finally Anne yawns into her hand.  
  
          “Perhaps you ought to retire, Your Majesty,” Kenna suggests, and Anne smiles at her ruefully.  
  
          “Are you ordering me to bed?” She questions, teasing, and Kenna moves immediately to apologize for offense but Anne puts her hand up, waves the words away. “I would, truly, but he kicks so hard sometimes - there’s hardly any point, I won’t fall asleep until he does,” Kenna bites her lip, nods, and then stands anyway.  
  
          “Perhaps if you try, he will,” she suggests, and Anne grins at her again.  
  
          “Ah, she hasn’t gone anywhere,” Anne says, laughs when Kenna stops and looks at her, confused. “I thought for a moment I’d lost you; you were about to apologize to me,” she explains, and Kenna offers somewhat of a guilty smile, glancing a moment at her feet.  
  
          “Well, if you’d like me to be forceful, Your Majesty-” she starts, offers both hands out to help her up. “I am ordering you to bed. I’ll help you change and then I’ll sing for you, like you used to for me,” she says, a half smile on her face all the while, and finally Anne puts her hands to Kenna’s.  
  
          “You were a child,” she points out as Kenna helps her up, allows her to lead her across the room.  
  
          “And you are with child. Perhaps it will work just as well,” she argues, sees Anne’s smile in the mirror before she begins unlacing her dress.  
  
          They work in silence, for a while; Kenna helps her out of her skirts and takes off her rings, her earrings, her necklace and lets her hair down – and that’s the Anne she’s always known, smirking at her in the flickering candlelight, gorgeous in the cloud of dark hair around her face. For a moment, Kenna is sixteen again, in the room the Boleyn sisters shared – the one she often shared with them, though she had a bed of her own. They had always managed to fit all three of them together; Kenna nearly half their heights, and with how often Mary wasn’t there, Kenna may as well have been Anne’s official bedmate. The strength of the memory is why she doesn’t hesitate in her question;  
  
          “What does it feel like?” She asks, and Anne raises a brow at her. “To be pregnant, I mean,” she clarifies, though she knows they both know there’s not much else Anne’s experienced that Kenna hasn’t at this point.  
  
          “Heavy,” Anne gives. “Hard; it’s what I’ve been working for for years, but I’m…” she trails off, and presses her lips together, gaze slipping off to something Kenna can't see. Anne doesn't cry easily; Anne doesn't really cry at all, to Kenna's memory, but she knows what the other woman looks like when she's in distress.  
  
          “Oh, Your Majesty,” Kenna starts, moves around her, hugs her without thinking. “I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter,” she tries to backpedal, and Anne’s fingers span out against her back.  
  
          “No, no, it’s all right,” she insists, shaking her head as she lifts it again. “It’s nothing at all, sweetheart,” she says, and Kenna decides to let it go. She can see the woman’s eyes are glossy in the candlelight, but now isn’t the time, and it isn’t her place.  
  
          “To bed, then,” Kenna gives with forced cheerfulness, her grin again one that doesn’t reach her eyes. Oddly, it feels more natural than the organic ones she's been involuntarily beaming with all night, and Anne’s calculating sweep of a gaze tells her she knows that, but she offers back her own half smile.  
  
          “To bed,” she agrees, and that’s where they go. Truly, it doesn’t take long at all for Anne to fall asleep, and Kenna feels both a flood of guilt and pride that the woman had forced herself to stay awake for her company. It must be past midnight, past one, two in the morning, and Kenna can feel exhaustion heavyset in her own spine, painful at her temples, but she doesn’t move. The queen’s head is in her lap, dark hair spread out so Kenna can card her fingers through it, and her breathing is even, quiet. Even under the blankets, Kenna can see the woman’s hand spread out over her stomach; protective, and Kenna doesn’t want to jostle her; doesn’t want to wake her up, so she stays where she is.  
  
          She doesn’t know how long she’s there, exactly, but she must nap back against the wall, because she wakes up to a figure in the room.  
  
          “Hello?” She says in a harsh whisper into the half dark, panic spreading through her shoulders. She has no idea what threats Anne may face at court, and her hand curls protectively around the woman’s shoulder, ready to shake her awake if necessary.  
  
          It’s not necessary; the sudden way she sat up wakes her up enough, and then the King steps out of the shadows and into the light.  
  
          “Kenna?” Anne asks, voice hoarse and pushing herself up on one elbow. The King comes to lean against the post at the end of the bed, grinning at them both. Kenna can’t move; she doesn’t know how to react, here – she can’t curtsey, not with Anne in her lap, and she’s just been found in the bed the King obviously sleeps in.  
  
          “Sweetheart,” Henry greets his wife, still grinning at them both. Kenna just stares at him; eyes wide, her fingers still tangled in Anne’s hair and the other hand gripping her shoulder. “Have you a new bedmate?” He asks, obviously amused rather than angry, but Kenna still doesn’t know how to respond. Anne shifts, looks up at her.  
  
          “My Lady in Waiting,” she gives, sits up properly, out of Kenna’s grasp, out of her reach. “Lady Kenna, the King,” she offers introduction, like Kenna needs any, like this man hadn't tucked her in along Mary most of her life, and finally she manages to make her body work, get out of bed, drop to a curtsey next to it.  
  
          “Your Majesty,” she’s not one to apologize or beg or grovel – she never has been, but she was so close to a comfortable place at court; she was so close to feeling safe, wanted, and she’s worried she’s just lost it all. Still, the King betrays nothing but amusement, but Kenna stays with her head bowed low as she hears him approach her.  
  
          “She sang me to sleep,” Anne offers, still tired, yawning. Kenna looks up, then, and finds the King just in front of her, but turned towards Anne. “Your Prince kicks too hard and too often to let me have any rest,” she tells him, almost chastising, but she’s got a half sort of smirk on her face and Kenna understands, then. It would be impossible not to fall in love with Anne; even Kings are not immune, and she wonders idly for a moment how her own Henry would have approached the woman before her.  
  
          “Well, we can hardly blame him for it. He’s a strong boy, anxious for the world,” the King tells her, and Kenna can hear the smile in his voice as he moves to sit on the edge of the bed.  
  
          She’s still holding a curtsey, and her legs are starting to ache, but she feels as though she’s privy to something important, now. A scene of domesticity; this, this is what loves look like, she thinks.  
  
          “Of course,” Anne agrees, eyes closing as her husband’s lips press into her forehead. “But he keeps me awake nearly as much as his father ever did,” she adds, soft, teasing, and Henry roars with a laugh.  
  
          “Oh, poor you,” he says, hand smoothing her hair back, still grinning. “You’ll never be getting any sleep, then,” he concedes, and she gives a heavy, put upon sigh.  
  
          Finally, they seem to remember Kenna is in the room, and the King gestures for her to straighten.  
  
          “As for you, Lady Kenna,” he says, and Kenna tries to not too obviously brace herself to be chastised. “I thank you for keeping the Queen company, and her bed warm while I’ve been dealing with matters of state,”  
  
          “Drinking,” she hears Anne clarify under her breath, and the King breaks into another bellow, grinning at her.  
  
          “Matters of state, my love!” He insists, all gaudy and loud and in love, and Anne dissolves into laughter against his shoulder.  
  
          “However, you ought to bed yourself,” he says. “I can warm her bed from here,” he adds, almost slurring, winking at her, and Kenna remembers what he was like the last time she was here. She wonders if he remembers her in this moment; his niece's playmate, his favourite's constant companion. He was always endearing, and gorgeous, and magnificent and truly, _truly_ , the most Golden Prince in Christendom. She’s even more sure of that, now.  
  
          “Of course, Your Majesty,” she agrees, dropping to another curtsey and moving to leave. He grabs her wrist before she can; not unkindly, not painfully, but she stops with fear nonetheless. There’s no need for it; he’s still smiling when she turns back. “And, we ought to let His Grace, Charles Brandon, the Duke of Suffolk know you’ve come home to us,” he says, and Anne grins at her, and she feels her heart jump to her throat and beat faster, harder. Whether it’s in panic or anticipation she cannot tell – but she still feels loved, here, and it is incredible to be in the presence of the King and Queen of England both and feel like she belongs. She’s known many monarchs, of course; far more than most ever will, and none will ever love her so well as Mary does, but perhaps she fits here. Perhaps there is a place for her.  
  
          “Of course, Your Majesty,” she repeats again, speaking around the thumping of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears.


	2. Too foreign for home, too foreign for here, never enough for both

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenna acclimatizes to the English Court, but France won't let her go.

Kenna eases back into life at court; it is, of course, much the same as life as Mary's Lady-In-Waiting - in the mechanics of it, at least. England is a court of reformed religion, now, and for the first weeks Kenna lives in fear of her Catholic ways being caught out - but religion has never truly meant much to her anyway and the Catholic habits are just that, habit. One way of worship has always felt much the same as the next; as long as God knows of her love, she has little complaint, and picks up the nuances of the new ways rather quickly, especially with Anne's attentions. Her attendance on the Queen in question becomes near constant, leaving her with little free time, which Kenna learns quickly is a positive; when left to her own devices she falls to despair.

It's an empty despair, now; not the same feeling that had her heaving wretched sobs in her escape from France. It's a blankness; a numbness, and when left to herself she will sit, looking at nothing, only to be roused to find that hours have passed as she deliberated on both everything and nothing. So she prefers to be busy; waiting on Anne - in the months since Kenna has come home a routine has settled.

It is summer, but the Queen cannot progress due to her condition, and the King has elected to stay put with his wife and baby-to-be; it leaves a restless court. The months are hot from morning to night, and the heat makes them idle and lazy until the evening, when all the raucousness comes out as the sun sets and the wine flows. Summer love catches couples in all compromise, and Kenna is courted by a few bored gentlemen of the King. There is a line, she finds; she is the Queen's favourite (much to the chagrin of the other ladies) and so of course there will be poems written to the bow of her lips, the gold of her hair, the glide of her feet as she follows two steps behind Anne. She accepts them and allows them; flirts prettily with the young gentlemen that try to hold her attention, accepts a dance here and there, but always leaves a song early, a conversation too quick; refuses to walk in private with them.

It starts rumours. As the Queen's favourite, Kenna also quickly becomes one of the King's; especially when he is in his wife's rooms. He remembers her, of course; and delights in the retelling of her childhood antics - Kenna finds herself blushing and laughing and begging him to stop though she can't help but feel comfortable in the teasing and taunting of the King. It's harmless, she knows; she finds affection in it, and the reminiscing is of what Kenna considers a better time, an easier time. But his attentions have consequences; she feels the glares of the ladies when she enters rooms, half-hears the whispered jests of the details of her relationship with the King, followed by bawdy laughter, when she passes the men she's turned down. It's not true, of course; Kenna knows the King has taken a mistress in Madge Shelton while his wife is unable to do her carnal duty - and she knows this because Anne admits to her arranging of it; the conversation is another in which Kenna nearly sees her cry, but not quite. Anne is afraid, and Kenna can see it, and Kenna knows they picked Madge because of their ability to control her, but there's a night where she considers her own ability to ease Anne's fears; after all, Kenna no longer has any of her own ambition. Kenna be an even safer choice, the Queen's absolute vessel - and in the technicality of it, Kenna knows she's learned things to keep a King's attentions. She could keep Henry sated and happy and celebrate with a clear conscience the birth of a Prince - she almost suggests it to Anne, on a night when neither the King nor Madge Shelton come to her rooms and Anne's eyes are dark, but bites her tongue on it.

Kenna can't bring herself to give her body to someone who doesn't want her mind, as well. Not again.

So the routine continues; Anne rises early and Kenna and Mary help her dress while another Lady reads from whatever theological book has Anne's current attentions. Kenna knows, as she hears the words without comprehension, that the only person in the room to truly understand what's being said is Anne herself, and contents herself easily with the task of adorning the Queen, so no one could guess she wasn't born to the title when they go to break their fast with the King and his men.

The King hunts, then, before they reach the heat of the day, and Kenna walks with the ladies and their Mistress in the gardens. Dinner is almost always a cold meal; no one is particularly hungry by the time the sun has reached its peak, and afternoons are spent inside, in the cool of the Queen's rooms while the King conducts his business in his.

They meet again for supper; Henry and his gentlemen come to the Queen's rooms to escort her and her ladies. Kenna finds herself nearly having to accept the invitation of a man that has already been too close for comfort on multiple occasions, but is saved by the Queen's brother, George, who catches her hand and shoos the man. It earns a glare from George's wife, Jane, but Kenna pays little attention to it; the couples' hatred for one another is no secret and Kenna doesn't particularly like the woman herself, finds her a snake that asks too many questions.

She was the first, after Anne herself, to ask Kenna about the French King. Kenna hasn't deigned to speak to her since.

"You're walking quite the line, Mademoiselle," George mutters softly to her as they walk, trailing the Royal couple, who have their heads bowed to each other like conspiratorial lovers they are. "Accepting their poems but not their gifts, a dance but never two. Keeping them all at arms' length. The only man you seem to have a moment for is the King himself,"

Kenna offers him a sidelong glare, but little more; George is teasing her, she knows - Thomas Boleyn looks at her with malice, as though he believes the rumours of her attempts to usurp his daughter, but none of his children pay any mind to the mutters. It is the greatest of jokes to Mary, who mumbles that Henry has always been a collector of fine things, and with Kenna's half-joked title of the fourth Boleyn, the King has only George left to complete the set.

"You hurt me, Lord Rochford. I always have a moment for you,"

"A married man,"

"Is that how they know you in the whorehouses? George Boleyn, the married man, the man of oath. What exactly are you doing with those ladies, then? Playing at cards?" She raises an eyebrow at him, enjoying the barely suppressed grin on his face. George is her friend, and she has few.

"Are you jealous, Kenna? Would you wish to be my wife?"

"Your idea of marriage does not suit me, George Boleyn. I should think you spend more nights in the Queen's rooms than your wife's,"

"Ah, of course," they come to a stop at Kenna's seat, and he comes around her, catching her hand and bending before it. "You are a woman with a King's appetites," the words are muttered over her knuckles and the breath is followed by a kiss, and George is gone before Kenna can rejoin him, or slap him, and she's left breaking into a laugh that must sound half-hysterical, with the way the ladies turn to look at her.

She collects herself quickly and sits, burying her blush behind her hair and biting her tongue on her laugh. It's the first direct words that have been given to her in reference to France; there's been underhanded conversation that confirmed nothing and, of course, rumours and whispers about her, but no one's ever actually  _said_ it, and the absurdity of such a fact makes her want to cry and laugh all at once.

 _You are a woman with a King's appetites_.

Wrong, Kenna things; I was the appetite of the King. He ate me whole; pulled skin from bone and limb from limb as one may dismember a roast chicken, devouring the legs and the wings and leaving a pile of bones. This is how she feels; rubbed raw and left to bleach in the sun. A dead thing; she has been nothing but a meal, her tenderness and taste later discussed over a glass of wine.

"Not hungry, Lady Kenna?" She spins in her seat, and it's the King; he's smiling at her but his brows are knit a little, and Kenna jumps up to curtsey.

"No, Your Majesty," she says as she comes up, glancing up the table to find Anne watching them, her forehead creased like concern. Kenna concludes quickly that Henry's been sent over to her with a purpose.

"Is it the heat?" He asks, and yes, she is quite hot; the blush she'd caught at George's words doesn't feel as though it's abated, and she is sticky and sweaty in the tight confines of her dress. The more she thinks of it, the tighter it feels, and Kenna tries to take a deep breath, finds she can't do so properly against the ribbing of her corset and the King's eyes.

"Yes, Your Majesty," she replies, the words feeling thing as she tries again to inhale, and he nods.

"The summer months dilute my appetite, as well," he agrees, and she feels wild at the words, glances around to the table to find Madge looking at them and breaks into a laugh that even she can hear the hysteria in, and she still can't breathe, can't breathe at  _all_ , and everyone is looking at her now, and Kenna can't help but pull at the front of her dress, try to give herself space to fill her chest with air, and she's  _so warm_. "Kenna?" Comes from the King, but it's far away; he's far away, even as he grabs her by the elbows, and Kenna finds herself grasping at him, the heat catching to her temples in a quickly creeping darkness. "She's fainting!" Is called, she doesn't know from where, and she has enough time to agree to herself with the unnamed voice before she collapses.


End file.
